> if you can generate alpha on the strange "homomorphically encrypted" data they've got, you can do it in the actual market with transparent data and more control far more profitably.

Sure. Now go get "transparent data"...oh wait, that's also time-consuming (and much less interesting). That's why, if one doesn't have to search for tradable data, it might be interesting to validate a signal/strategy on data that someone with stake says is tradable.

Agreed that if one starts making numerai money with numerai data, one should definitely go get some transparent data and start trading it. Trouble is, now one doesn't know what transparent data one has actually learned, so it's hard to know what to go and spend time on trading.

At that point, though, (I guess this is the theory, at least), numerai presumably know that one has a good signal, and one also knows one has a good signal for something, so both parties know that one's signals are valuable. That should be enough to get one a job at a place that does have good, transparent data.